Democrats are scratching their heads over John McCain’s pick for vice president - just as they were when Republicans nominated a mediocre actor as their presidential candidate in 1980, a bush league senator as vice president in 1988 who somehow gained traction by talking about the sins of fictitious single mom, and a ne’er-do-well from a well-to-do as president in 2000.
We should be concerned because they won.
Democrats’ reaction to Sarah Palin has focused on her inexperience, knowing little or nothing about foreign policy or national issues; she is really an anti-feminist, wanting the government to enter women's lives to block abortion, but not wanting the government to guarantee equal pay for equal work, or provide adequate child health coverage, or child care, or early childhood education; she shills for the oil and gas industry on drilling; she denies the scientific truths of global warming and evolution; she misuses her political authority; she opposes sex education; and, rather than being a maverick, she is on the whole a radical right-wing ideologue.
All of which seems to be true, but probably largely irrelevant, according to George Lakoff:
The McCain campaign is well aware of how Reagan and W won-running on character: values, communication, (apparent) authenticity, trust, and identity - not issues and policies. That is how campaigns work, and symbolism is central. …
Conservative theorists win (independent voters) over in two ways: Inventing and promulgating the idea of "liberal elite" and focusing campaigns on social and family issues. They have been doing this for many years and have changed a lot of brains through repetition. Palin will appeal strongly to conservative populists, attacking Obama and Biden as pointy-headed, tax-and-spend, latte liberals. The tactic is to divert attention from difficult realities to powerful symbolism.
The solution?
Call an extremist an extremist: shine a light on the shared anti-democratic ideology of McCain and Palin, the same ideology shared by Bush and Cheney. They share values antithetical to our democracy. That needs to be said loud and clear, if not by the Obama campaign itself, then by the rest of us who share democratic American values.
1 comments:
Since Palin was elected by a majority of her state to be governor, and apparently is admired by 80% of Alaskans, exactly how is she "antithetical to our democracy"?
On oil companies: It is NOT oil companies who have created a shortage of oil, but the natural growth of demand (with more wealth in China and India), and the refusal of the main source of supply in the US--the Federal government that owns oil offshore and in Federal lands--to allow increased production. Go ahead and charge more royalties for oil produced on Federal leases, but don't blame oil production companies for high prices.
Palin is an Alaskan who knows that oil production in ANWR is not going to damage wildlife any more than the production on the North Slope has damaged wildlife for the last 30 years, namely not at all. Alaskan native tribes take thousands of head of caribour every Fall, as the herds move south. No oil rig is going to kill caribou. Indeed, since the North Slope production, wildlife has INCREASED. You know darn well that if oil production actually hurt wildlife, we would be seeing video of it all the time, but the fact is that there is none. After all, Utah has lots of wilderness, lots of national parks, lots of national forests, lots of wildlife refuges. It also has oil and gas production, refineries, and urban areas for 2.7 million people. Total oil production in ANWR will cover the area of Fashion Place Mall in a land the size of half of Utah. Most animals in ANWR will never see an oil rig.
As to global warming: Anyone who as looked at ACTUAL temperatures, rather than forecasts, will know that, since 1998, global temps have been LOWER, and 2008 is the coldest year in the last 10. If global warming exists, it is so small that you can't even see it happening. The climate models that predicted high rates of warming have all been invalidated by the last 10 years of real experience since the Kyoto Protocal was issued. Only the lowest rate of warming models have any residual credibility. Warming is a slow growth issue, NOT a crisis that justifies any drastic action, especially drastic action that will make only a 1% difference in cumulative CO2 by 2050, as the Pelosi bill did. It was all pain, no gain. And with China doubling CO2 in the next 10 years (it has already passed the US), we could shut down the US and it would make no long term difference. Democrats don;t mind increasing gas prices to 6 or 7 dollars a gallon, they just want the extra cost to all go into taxes, not profits for the public school teacher pension funds that own shares in Exxon and Chevron.
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